According to several articles, this labor day weekend is the slowest labor day weekend box-office wise since 2001. A lot of films that were expected to make a lot of money this summer bombed including The Mummy, Transformers: The Last Knight, War For the Planet of the Apes, Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets, and Kathryn Bigelow’s new film Detroit. War For the Planet of the Apes and Detroit received decent reviews, but still bombed, particularly Detroit. According to Dan Murrell from Screen Junkies News on YouTube, the slow box office of Summer 2017 could be due to people not going to the movies now that there are so many streaming services such as Netflix, Hulu, and Amazon. Because of the slow box office, several movie theaters were looking to expand The Big Sick being that there was nothing else to play. This is a good thing, though, because The Big Sick was a great movie, at least I thought so. The Big Sick received a 98% on Rotten Tomatoes and a gross of $38, 151, 532 as of August. However, movie theatres cannot play The Big Sick for too much longer being that it is coming to DVD on September 19th. The remake of It, however, is already a record-scoring box-office hit. Additionally, More movie theatres are playing the independent films Wind River and Good Time. Wind River is already receiving early Oscar-buzz. I did not see Wind River, but I loved Good Time. Under these circumstances, the current absence of well-grossing blockbusters is an opportunity for these smaller independent films to get noticed.
If you look at what is “coming soon” on IMDb, there are not many big anticipated movies other than Thor: Ragnarok, Justice League, and Star Wars: The Last Jedi. Then again, Thor: Ragnarok might not make as much money as Justice League and Star Wars. Nonetheless, it is still an anticipated blockbuster. On October 6th, Blade Runner 2049 is being released. This will probably do well box-office wise considering the fact that it is a sequel to a sci-fi classic. Nevertheless, it is not getting nearly as much talk as Justice League and The Last Jedi are. In between these franchises, however, there is not much else being released. If these box office interludes are slow as they were this summer, independent and foreign films could get more attention. Below is a list of indie and foreign films that could be noticed if the box office is slow during the Fall and Winter as well:
Loving Vincent (September 22nd)-dir. Dorota Kobiela and Hugh Welchman
Lucky (September 29th)-dir. John Carroll Lynch
The Florida Project (October 6th)-dir. Sean Baker
The Square (limited release October 27th)-dir. Ruben Ostlund
120 Beats Per Minute (limited release October 27th)-dir. Robin Campillo
The Killing of a Sacred Deer (November 3rd)-dir. Yorgos Lanthimos
Lady Bird (November 10th)-dir. Greta Gerwig
Three Billboards Outside Ebbing Missouri (November 10th)-dir. Martin McDonagh
Call Me By Your Name (November 23rd)-Luca Guadagnino
The Shape of Water (December 8th)-dir. Guillermo del Torro
You Were Never Really Here (TBA)-dir. Lynne Ramsay
I cannot make any exact specific Oscar predictions yet. However, if these films are well-reviewed, then we can see a shift in how independent films are marketed and distributed.
